


it was love

by orphan_account



Category: Free!
Genre: Fluff, Haru takes Makoto to Australia, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Makoto-centric, Tachibana Makoto Angst, loud sobbing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-20
Updated: 2017-03-20
Packaged: 2018-10-08 05:45:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 973
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10379799
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Haru turned his face away, but not before Makoto could see the relief on it. “You need to be selfish more often.”Makoto huffed an evasive little laugh. They both knew selfish wasn’t even a word in Makoto’s dictionary.No matter how badly Makoto wanted or even needed something for himself, he would never take it. It had to be given.It was a good thing he had Haru for that, wasn’t it?





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Jaseym](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jaseym/gifts).



> Haru takes Makoto to Australia. Anyways Free! is alive again and I'm crying
> 
> Suggested listening: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5qRZKb-36I

If there was a body of water nearby, Nanase Haruka was swimming in it. 

 

That was the rule, one of the unchanging laws of the universe. 

 

In an Olympic-sized pool in Australia, a boy just on the cusp of becoming a man cut through the sparkling blue, feeling as though he was soaring through the sky as the water rushed below him like a living thing. 

 

Nanase Haruka watched from the sidelines. 

 

The boy in the water gasped quietly, and Haru allowed himself a small smile. The familiar warmth blooming in his chest was meant for one person, and one alone.

 

Tachibana Makoto had never in all his life set a single toe more than 10 kilometres away from the house in Iwatobi where he'd grown up. And here he was, gliding through this space made of light and water in the middle of a strange city, enormous and terrifying and wonderful and new. And he felt- he felt- 

 

Well, he felt like…Haru. 

 

A whole world he’d never imagined spreading out beneath his feet, huge and sprawling like city lights seen from an airplane. Nobody else to worry about, nobody to pull out of water fountains or rescue from midnight ocean swims or chastise for drinking an entire vending machine of strawberry milk. Just Makoto, and the water. 

 

He didn’t have to hold back. He didn’t have to worry about chasing the light, about that strange pain in his chest when he thought of Haru and Rin, soaring ahead together, and all the places he couldn’t follow them. 

 

This time, in this strange city, the light would come to him. 

 

Makoto heard himself laugh, still riding the current on his back, feeling it lifting him, supporting him. Belatedly, he realized anybody who wasn’t Haru would think he was crazy. 

 

For the first time in his life, he couldn’t bring himself to care.

 

He picked up the pace, pushing himself as far as he could go, wanting to catch in his hands that light he had finally found, the light Haru and Rin inhabited effortlessly whenever they raced. 

 

He reached his fastest speed, the one he’d pushed himself towards the one time he'd raced Haru. He gritted his teeth, waiting for his body to tire, lose speed, tell him he wasn’t enough. 

 

It didn’t. 

 

He felt his goggles filling up with water, an unusual thing for a backstroke swimmer. He ignored it, kept going, racing towards the edge of the pool, towards home. 

 

Haru smiled proudly at him when he reached the wall, their usual positions reversed. Makoto felt as though he was looking at himself through a mirror as Haru titled his head slightly. 

 

“Did you feel it, too?”

 

Makoto smiled back. He didn’t have to ask what Haru meant. 

 

“…Yes. Finally.” 

 

Haru turned his face away, but not before Makoto could see the relief on it. “You need to be selfish more often.”

 

Makoto huffed an evasive little laugh. They both knew selfish wasn’t even a word in Makoto’s dictionary. 

 

No matter how badly Makoto wanted or even needed something for himself, he would never take it. It had to be given.

 

It was a good thing he had Haru for that, wasn’t it?

 

As he took off his goggles and poured out the unexplained water in them, Makoto realized he had been crying.

 

—

 

Makoto had thought that Australia would be frightening to him, a place completely unfamiliar. 

 

It was only when he was sitting with Haru on a bench near the pool, staring out at the lights of Sydney, that he realized that wasn’t the case at all. 

 

Whether it was in Iwatobi, Sydney, or the deserted beach where he had nearly drowned...

 

...As long as Haru was there with him, the familiarity remained. Everything would be alright.

 

"Haru. Why didn’t you get in the pool today?” Makoto teased, nudging his friend gently. “I thought you wouldn’t be able to resist.”

 

“Don’t be an idiot.” Haru huffed a little smile of his own, looking out over the Sydney skyline. “It’s just like I said.”

 

He turned to Makoto, catching him with the full force of his gaze. “You need to be selfish more."

 

Makoto took in a sharp breath, looking up at the sky. He’d thought he’d lost the ability to be surprised by Haru long ago, but here he was, learning something new about his best friend every day. 

 

He’d known that Makoto wanted to feel what Haru and Rin felt when they swam. That glowing certainty of freedom, untethered by attachment to anything or anyone else. The spirit of adventure, the impulse to jump in and explore without worrying about what you left behind. 

 

A beautiful feeling, but a selfish one, by nature. Something that Makoto might long for, but would never reach out to take on his own. He’d be forever left behind like that day he raced Haru, arm stretched towards the distant, unreachable light. 

 

Haru had seen all that, and he had known. And by giving Makoto the pool to himself, he’d given him everything he wanted, everything he would never ask for. 

 

Makoto had never considered himself special. He was just a person. Not a burning firestorm like Rin, or a rain of bright meteors like Nagisa, or a vast and deep ocean like Haru. 

 

Haru. Who had given up the water he belonged in, if only for a moment, so that Makoto could swim alone for the first time. 

 

If there was a body of water nearby, Nanase Haruka was swimming in it. 

 

An unwritten yet immutable law of the universe. 

 

And, squeezing his best friend’s hand, Makoto couldn’t help but laugh as he realized what Haru had been trying to tell him all along:

 

If Tachibana Makoto could change an unchangeable rule, he must in reality be a very special person indeed. 


End file.
